Method of Dealing with Regular All Ins

The other day I was playing a 9 player SNG (non-turbo $10+1), and it took long enough that the blinds became pretty large, even with 4 of us still left. I had the largest stack, but not by a whole lot.

The player to my right had been pretty quiet, only playing a few hands at opportune times. I had checked, and he was currently registered in 14 other 9SNGs. At some point he started going all in every time I was in the big blind when the other two had folded. In fact, this happened 8 times in a row as the blinds increased and the other two happened to fold into my BB. I held my own by playing the other positions smartly, but eventually he overtook me for the chip lead as I folded for the 9th and 10th times with KQ and A7 suited.

A couple rounds later I eventually drew AQ and called his all in, surviving his two live cards. A hand or two later I took him out with AQ again. I ended up finishing 2nd after being outdrawn, but that isn't the point.

My question is whether I should have handled this any differently. Clearly this guy was going to go all in from that position every time. And probably the other two had decided they could wait for one of us to knock down the other to ensure they cash. I didn't want to go against him unless I was pretty sure I was favored, and it didn't take long for him to figure that out. Any constructive advice would be appreciated.

A couple of ways to look at this:

If you think that the other two players won't take themselves out, then it's between you and the villian. If that's the case:

1) Check if he's going crazy on ANY of the other 14 tables. Open them (if you aren't multi-tabling). She how he treats the guy on his left while in the SB. If he is doing the same, you have to make a stand.

2) Even if you don't look at the other tables, you said he did this 8 times. You have to make a stand. [If the blinds were so big, I wonder how short he was the first time. I'm guess you should have called w/ ATC (any two cards)]. KQ is a calling hand in this situation. I prefer it to A7. (don't know if either are suited, but it would make a small difference).

He smells your weakness and seems to be a reg (given the amount of tables). He will keep attacking. You must make a stand.

I also would have taken a stand much earlier, almost any face card with someone like that. If I'm going to double someone up I like to do it early so I have time to recover. It will also get him thinking that you will call again.
I also like to start raising on his big blinds. If he's going to take mine I'm going to try and make his life miserable too.

Sounds like he's playing a decent strategy for sng's. Oh and you dont have to 'make a stand' it depends on a lot of factors, like are the other two super short? are both you and the sb villian really deep? without this info, it's pretty hard to give a decent answer, it 'could' be ok to call with AQ, but you 'could' have made a huge error.

Post in HA with the proper HH to get more detailed, and accurate answers.

This is a great startegy for sitandgo's, u showed that tight is what u were playing and he took advantage of it. He just went to far and let u get the best of him, seems to me i would of called when u had kq but maybe a good lay down. If people think ur playing tight they will kill u in a sitango and most of the time u don't know where u are and have to pick up a big hand just to stay even. Mix it up and try not to give any tells.

You handled this all in frenzy well in my opinion. Just be patient and wait for the hand to knock him out. He's not winning that much in comparison to your chip stack by doing this. You will end up getting more chips from one big hand, than from all these stupid pushes with anything to steal blinds. Good luck.

WiZZiM said:

Sounds like he's playing a decent strategy for sng's. Oh and you dont have to 'make a stand' it depends on a lot of factors, like are the other two super short? are both you and the sb villian really deep? without this info, it's pretty hard to give a decent answer, it 'could' be ok to call with AQ, but you 'could' have made a huge error.

Post in HA with the proper HH to get more detailed, and accurate answers.

Click to expand...

WizziM is correct. I made a quick assumption that the other two are out of the equation. If you don't know, you don't have to 'make a stand'. Stacks are essential to properly reach a conclusion. I was just going on what we had.

tookie21 said:

I also would have taken a stand much earlier, almost any face card with someone like that. If I'm going to double someone up I like to do it early so I have time to recover. It will also get him thinking that you will call again.
I also like to start raising on his big blinds. If he's going to take mine I'm going to try and make his life miserable too.

Click to expand...

From an ICM standpoint.. this ^ is a TERRIBLE idea.

Instead of thinking, "I need to call this guy"... why aren't we considering doing something simliar when we're in SB BTN, etc.???
Not sure how big the blinds were, how deep the stacks were, but even calling off w AQ is often a big mistake. (believe it or not, calling w QQ is often a mistake)

I actulally saw this drunk guy do this in a live poker game, it was pretty funny because they came back from break and this guy has a good chip stack and all of a sudden every hand pre flop he was all in and no body knew what to do, really about 20 hands of this and finally someone called with AK or something and almost lost to this guy. So my take is that you wait for decient cards and try to get heads up with him and make the shove.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 61.469% 60.45% 01.02% 12084671 204498.00 { KQo }
Hand 1: 38.531% 37.51% 01.02% 7498696 204498.00 { random }

nom nom

At small buy-in 6 max Sng i often bump into such players when we are 2 players left. And there is a problem when blinds are 100/200 or higher. If something does not happen in maximum 10 hands u are out cose you will not have too many options and the difference of the money is huge between second and first place.
Most of the time i say to myself that he does not know to play poker but i manage to beat them only half of the times.

My advice.

If he does this more than 2 times:
Call with any pair.
Call with any 2 connectors(suited or not ) higher that 67.
Call with any face card.

Do not call the first and the second time. He might be a tight player and just have good cards at that moment.

Thanks for the responses so far. I went back to my hand history to offer some details. In fact the first few of these had 5 players, and I guess I had AK instead of AQ when I finally called. Any other feedback, based on this added info?:

Blinds MyStack HisStack MyCards
100/200 4,009 1,920 2-5o
100/200 4,209 2,120 9-10o
120/240 4,109 2,220 K-6o
120/240 4,469 1,860 4-5s
120/240 4,829 1,860 4-7o
nothing for about 15 hands
200/400 3,110 2,835 K-6o
200/400 4,663 3,435 K-Qo
200/400 4,063 3,435 A-7s
200/400 3,463 4,035 8-9o
200/400 2,863 4,635 10-6o
200/400 2,463 5,035 A-Ko (I called and beat his Q-2s)
250/500 5,325 2,572 A-Qs (I called from SB and beat his 8-8)

You might want to consider grabbing a free trial of SNG Wiz, punch in the numbers & get an idea of calling ranges/shoving ranges (using Pokerstove along with it). If you just dick around with that program a bunch, making the correct play will become much more intuitive in bubble situations. Player reads are also important to a degreee... but a big mistake many players make who are ICM-dumb is that they call down too light in bad spots. (of course on the flip side, the other HUGE mistake that many make is shoving way too tight).

Sounds to me like your man to the right had a solid understanding of ICM. I think calling with AQ is probably is $-ev decision in this spot. The other examples you show are no-brainer folds. To combat this you should be looking to shove on the BB when you're in the SB.

Pascal LeFiscal said:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 61.469% 60.45% 01.02% 12084671 204498.00 { KQo }
Hand 1: 38.531% 37.51% 01.02% 7498696 204498.00 { random }

nom nom

Click to expand...

That essentially tells us very little.. What are you trying to insinuate here?

swingro said:

At small buy-in 6 max Sng i often bump into such players when we are 2 players left. And there is a problem when blinds are 100/200 or higher. If something does not happen in maximum 10 hands u are out cose you will not have too many options and the difference of the money is huge between second and first place.
Most of the time i say to myself that he does not know to play poker but i manage to beat them only half of the times.

My advice.

If he does this more than 2 times:
Call with any pair.
Call with any 2 connectors(suited or not ) higher that 67.
Call with any face card.

Do not call the first and the second time. He might be a tight player and just have good cards at that moment.

Click to expand...

What?

WiZZiM said:

That essentially tells us very little.. What are you trying to insinuate here?

Click to expand...

At some point he started going all in every time I was in the big blind when the other two had folded. In fact, this happened 8 times in a row

Click to expand...

Unless he's had the sickest run of cards ever then he is pushing any two, therefore KQ is a good call.

Thought that is what you meant.

Good chip call? probably
Good money call? probably not

Both depend on what chip stacks remain with the other two villains, I highly doubt that calling with KQ with roughly even stacks on the bubble can ever be "good".

As as been said he played well attacking a big stack that would be scared that calling means he becomes a small stack, unless you get a monster calling is not something you want to do, work on the next weakest player and try taking others blinds and wait for a time where your calling his all-in with a hand that should have him donimated. I have been a short stack in this situation on the bubble and some nice players have called an AIpf from players such as this and basically handed me a place in the money.